Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Her last record (of four) on Crest Records. Lynn Marshall was the daughter of Hollywood arranger Jack Marshall, best known for scoring the Peggy Lee classic 'Fever'.

She warbled in and around Hollywood since the early fifties (Lancer's Quartette, "Tears in My Heart", Serenade Records, 1952). She had also a record on Neely Plumb's Star Records.

If you have see her name before that's probably because Eddie Cochran played on one of her Crest sessions. Not sure if Eddie is on this, but unmistakenly I can hear Buddy Holly playing with something in the background...

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Speaking of death (Eddie & Buddy are dead, that's the transition!) , I'm just learning today that music lovers can now be immortalised when they die by having their ashes baked into vinyl records to leave behind for loved ones.

A UK company called And Vinyly is offering people the chance to press their ashes in a vinyl recording of their own voice, their favourite tunes or their last will and testament. Minimalist audiophiles might want to go for the simple option of having no tunes or voiceover, and simply pressing the ashes into the vinyl to result in pops and crackles. We live in a such great time!

Here how it works :

1. Confirm with us your location and the viability of these services in your area 2. Identify a family member or a chosen representative who will accompany you (your ashes) to the pressing of your records 3. Establish audio and cover art content 4. Attend the mastering of your record 5. Receive playable proof sample of your record and cover 6. Die 7. Get cremated 8. Your family member or chosen representative books and attends the sprinkling and pressing of your records 9. Your chosen recipients will be sent details of where to collect their copy of your personal record 10. Live on from beyond the groove

That's so easy (with the possible exception of point #6). Interested ? Then go to their site HERE

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Born August 6, 1928 - Died November 1994. Worked for Marty Robbins for nearly a quarter of a century. In the same time, Bobby had an extensive recording career of his own, being no mean vocalist himself., recording for Epic (1959-60), Columbia (1961-62) Starday (1963 RIC (1965), Sims (1966) as by Johnny Freedom, Wayside (1967) as by Bob Bishop, JED (1967), ABC (1968-69) as by Bob Bishop, Happy Tiger (1970), Boyd , JMI and J&B.

Before he joined Marty Robbins in 1958, Bobby Sykes had records on Franz Schubert Records and on Decca ("Touch of Loving").

He was singing on a Nashville television show (soon to be cancelled) when he was approached in late summer 1958 by Marty Robbins.

"One day at the Clarkston Hotel coffee shop, I was going in and Marty Robbins was coming out. We said hello and passed by each other, and I heard, "Hey,Bobby.' So I turned around, and Marty said, "What are you doing now that the show's gone off the air? " I said, "Nothing," He said, "you want a job? " I've got an eighteen-day tour coming up. Why don't you take that tour with me ?"

Sunday, August 12, 2012

The Logan label was owned, in all likehood, by Hal Smith (James Harrell "Hal" Smith, born in Alabama in 1923) whose one of the most prosperous ventures was Pamper Music, a publishing company affiliated with BMI.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

From San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area. Label probably owned by one Lewis and partner named J...

Robert J. Troutt aka Pastor Bob, a member of "The Mystics" was making extra money when he also acted as a background singer for "Mary Handy and the Butterflies" along with the "Sputnicks" from Los Angeles.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

The correct answer is Chris Cerf and I'm rather proud of you, Dead Wax followers, because, as I can see, you do have a rather good musical knowledge. Issued on the undocumented Dielectric label, one side has two Chris Cerf songs. Other side is by different artists. The record was pressed by Shelley Products in Huntington Station, probably in 1963.

Chris Cerf make his recording debut, while still a student at Harvard, and had several songs on the Vanitas LP titled The Harvard Lampoon Tabernacle Choir Sings At Leningrad Stadium recorded in 1961. The successful "The Penguin" was subsequently issued on a single in 1962.

Chris Cerf :

I’ve always been interested in music and when I was a kid, (I’m old enough to have been around when rock and roll was really popular), I especially liked New Orleans style of piano like Fats Domino, and I was taking piano lessons, but not in that. I was much more interested in figuring out how to play doo wop music and blues than in classical.

When I learned how to do that well enough, I tried to write funny rock songs when I was in college. When I was on the Harvard Lampoon we actually made a record of some of them and the reason that’s relevant, I was hired to work on Sesame Street for quite different reasons right after it started but the music director had gone to Harvard with me and remembered I could write rock and roll, so when they need some for Sesame Street, he said, Do you want to try?

Sesame Street songs were really used in Irak by interrogators. The use of music as torture, as weapon or any other purpose other than aural pleasure is a fascinating subject with incredible ramifications.

One of the most interesting internet reading that I've found is the (academic) article by Suzanne G. Cusick published in Revista Transcultural de Música (Transcultural Music Review) : "Music as torture / Music as weapon"

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Original release on the Nine Rock label locatedat Rockfeller Plaza, New York City

I wonder how many original releases exactly had Dot Records ?

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Johnny King may also be the same artist on the Monticello label (Rochester, New York, 1959), on Florence Greenberg's Tiara Records ("Gondola Rock", 1959) and on Guy Records (1961).

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Writer and director of the Nine Rock/Dot singles is a pre-"Twist and Shout" Phil Medley.

Biographical details on this prolific songwriter, producer and bandleader are surprisingly rather sketchy for a such prolific and talented songwriter (339 titles listed in the BMI online database). See BMI database HERE.

I believe I've found one of the earliest mention (AND picture) of Phil Medley :

Sgt. Medley former cadet, this talented GI from Boston organized and directed the Cadet Glee Club whose reputation as a musical group is widely known. A former student at Virginia State College, where he was a versatile athlete and scholar, Sgt. Medley was recently selected the outstanding soldier at TAAF (i.e. Tuskegee Army Air Field, Alabama]. He is married to the former Miss Carolyn Holland of Danville, Va., his college sweetheart.

Friday, August 3, 2012

The flip, "I'm Still Around", has an annoying female backing and can be heard indeed on YouTube, purveyor of great, of not so great and, mostly, of very bad music.

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Larry and Gary Moore, twins from Brazosport, played the guitars and sang at various venues, radio and television in and around Freeport, Texas. It seems that they were very popular as some people are still remember them. Sheila Skaggs Hale, anwsering to a Fxxxbxxx inquiry inform us that "Larry Moore is in Hollister MO. I'm sad to report that Gary died many years ago.". Not much to add except that they also had another single, on the Todd label : "It Can Never Be The Same / Rosemary " (1964).

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Cue Records was owned, in Houston, Texas, by Jimmy Duncan, songwriter, singer, composer, author, arranger and producer, best known for his 1957 song "My Special Angel", a #1 country/western hit for Bobby Helms.

I must say that I've been doing a lot of internet searches and that I'm still confused by several contradictions and little mysteries regarding the biography of Mister Jimmy Duncan. For now, I'd rather not say.

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Cue Records had four different numerical series at various times :

79xx series - 1955-1957

Starting in 1955, just before Christmas, there was Cue #7923/4 by Jimmy Duncan himself (Goodbye To Love / I Asked The Lord). followed thru 1957 by a dozen of singles by the Scholars (member : Kenny Rogers), the Saints and the Sunny Land Trio.

1200 series - 1958

Four singles by The Angel Sisters, Don Angelo and the Saints. These four singles all resulted from some sort of a (rather surprising) deal withfamed New-York producer George Goldner.

1050 series - 1963-1964

Dormant between 1959 and 1963, the Cue label was reactivated but had only a handful of singles, the most notable being by bluesman Gatemouth Brown (Summertime / Leftover Blues)

Thursday, August 2, 2012

October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite. That's was the start of a craze. At such extent that Irwin Zucker jokingly devised a parody of Top Ten :

Billboard (December 16, 1957)Hollywood – Now that we’re concerned with satellites, sputniks and the like, disk promotion man Irwin Zucker figures ther’s gotta be an « Outer Space Top Ten» To help the Martian d.j. programming, Zucker compiled the following list :

1 The Last Time I Saucer Paris2 Ol’ Rocket Chair’s Got Me3 It’s Moon In January4 Don’t Satellite Under The Apple Tree5 How Comet You Do Me Like You Do, Do, Do ?6 Martian Thru Georgia7 You’re Getting To Be An Orbit With Me8 Oh, How I Missile You Tonight9 I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Space10 My Sphere Lady

There was an explosion of new space-themed label names, among them, Orbit.

I've collected here pictures of the different Orbit labels that I can find. Only one picture for each label.

Detroit, Michigan

Eugene, OregonThe Orbit Sound "Heard 'Round The World"

Detroit, Michigan

Williamson, West Virginia

Glendale, CaliforniaPre-Sputnik (early fifties)

Hollywood, California

"The Sound That Out Of This World". Pop label launched by Richard Vaughn's High Fidelity Recordings in 1958.

M-G-M Records subsidiary

Name changed to Cub when, according to Billboard (April 7, 1958) it was learned by MGM that there were four other labels on the market employing the Orbit name.